The ability to provide cost effective, flexible, reliable, secure, and high-performing enterprise computing systems has become an important goal of many corporate, educational, and governmental institutions. In this regard, new computing architectures are being developed in order to achieve both lower operating expenses and lower capital expenses in PC enterprise systems. For example, new architectures may utilize desktop PCs that support reduced processing capabilities while transferring the more processing intensive operations to another machine or processing device, for instance a blade board, hereinafter blade, generally located in a remote server or a remote machine with a different form factor. These desktop PCs, also referred to as thin client (TC) machines, may utilize an operating system (OS), such as Windows CE, for example, that may be optimized to perform local tasks while the blade may utilize a more powerful operating system capable of supporting large software applications. In this regard, a blade may be utilized to provide system and application support to one or several TC machines, realizing a lower cost structure for enterprise computing systems. Traditionally, blade/TC architectures have been aimed at task-based workers operating in places such as call centers, hospitals, technology companies, and/or financial institutions. However, the cost benefits of a blade/TC architecture make it an attractive alternative in many other public and/or private environments including, for example, consumer market for residential use.
Blade/TC architectures may also improve the ability to provide enterprise computing protection by centralizing security operations and/or routines at the blade while utilizing an operating system at the TC machine that is less prone to security breaches, for example. Similarly, the centralized blade/TC architecture may perform easier updates, additions, and/or removal of software applications and/or the operating systems that support those software applications at the blade. Moreover, higher reliability may be achieved through centralized backup systems also implemented at the blade. However, in some instances, a blade/TC architecture may be vulnerable to security breaches and a robust protection scheme may need to be implemented to enable its effective operation.
In order for a TC machine and the blade to coordinate operations, the TC machine operating system and the blade operating system may utilize a common protocol. For example, some Windows-based operating systems may support a native Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) as well as a Citrix Independent Computing Architecture (ICA) protocol. In this regard, the RDP or ICA protocols may be utilized to intercept many of the functions and/or commands that would otherwise be performed locally by the TC machine operating system and transfer them to the blade operating system for processing. However, this may require compatibility between the common protocol and the operating systems in the TC machine and the blade. Any modifications, changes, and/or updates to the common protocol must be such that compatibility is maintained between the common protocol and the operating systems. Moreover, because operating systems that are not compatible with the common protocol may not be utilized, blade/TC architectures may be limited in flexibility and in the cost benefits that they are intended to provide.
As applications are added or simply migrate from one version of the OS to a new version or as new features in the OS become available, the protocol may not support or may not fully support these new applications, OS or features. In some instances, for example with ICA, there may be a need to access both the TC and the blade to install new applications. Moreover, in some instances, the protocol may not support the functionality that may be available to a local user, for example, audio support.
The changes, modifications, and/or updates to the common protocol may be a result of updates to the blade and/or the TC machine operating system, for example. In some instances, when a TC machine is adapted to run an operating system, updating the operating system in the TC machine may also require upgrades to the TC machine hardware. These hardware upgrades may result in large capital and/or maintenance expenses in enterprise computing systems that comprise many TC machines. New blade/TC architectures may be needed that further reduce the operating and maintenance cost of enterprise computing systems by requiring minimal hardware upgrades while also providing flexibility in the selection of operating systems and/or software applications that may be supported by the blade.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with some aspects of the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.